


Keyword: Mine

by sanctum_c



Series: Aerti Week 2018 [8]
Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Persona Fusion, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:53:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27941087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctum_c/pseuds/sanctum_c
Summary: The Phantom Thieves - codename: Avalanche - infiltrate Rufus Shinra's palace.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Tifa Lockhart
Series: Aerti Week 2018 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2016011
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Keyword: Mine

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the prompt 'Battle' - but moved to the Free Day

Aeris glanced at the rest of the Phantom Thieves; they nodded in turn. Tifa apprehensive beside her but eager to get on with their mission. The first skirmish with their latest target; stealing the heart of Rufus Shinra. The phone app triggered and the world blurred around them, warping and wavering as they shifted from reality into the cognitive world.

The light dimmed. Each palace was different in some way, but few as dark as the wasteland surrounding them. Knight shifted his feet, the mask never fully hiding his blond spikes. A good thing they were as stealthy as they typically were; Knight risked easy recognition. “Sand?”

“Looks like it,” Monk murmured, kneeling to sift the surface between her fingers. “Wait, isn’t this-“

“Just like outside Midgar,” Gunner muttered. There was a lighter point ahead of them, hidden for now by a ridge on the landscape. “Maybe Shinra’s palace is the whole city?” Unspoken in his question was the keyword; the palace could not be Midgar.

Nothing else around them, the dull landscape trailing off to infinite distance; real world mountains or the distant lights of Kalm did not exist here. Geomancer moved forward. “Let’s find out,” she said. Monk stuck close. This might be the last time; if they could change Rufus’s heart, change the man who controlled Shinra- Life might change for the better. No more need to steal hearts, to fight back against Shinra. The corruption and control would be gone. People would be free and the Planet would continue to live. Any chance they could complete this heist in two tries?

Unlikely; every other palace intrusion required a number of trips in and out of the cognitive world before they could reach the treasure at the heart. Securing the route forced the publication of the calling card and a final run through the palace construct. Two visits to whatever passed for Shinra’s stronghold at a minimum. Possibly more. Worth it though. Beside her, Monk stiffened, staring ahead, her eyes wide. Geomancer shook her reverie away to follow her gaze.

The keyword to unlock the palace of Rufus Shinra was ‘Mine’. Singularly appropriate for the man; all was his. The expectation was a palace hidden below the ground, entry strictly controlled at numerous points. The reality - if such a word applied here – of Shinra’s palace was different. A low building lay on a rise in the ground before a vast funnel-shaped pit burrowing down deeper into the earth. Faceless wraiths toiled with pickaxes all across the surface. They were excavating-

“Is that gil?” Monk hissed, her body tense.

Wraiths tugged Gil in singular coins, or strange clumps of metal from the ground and loaded onto conveyer-belts moving it up and out of the pit. Hundreds of belts raising millions worth of gil from the ground. But there was something odd when the gil reached the edges of the pit. The accumulated gil tipped from the belts to the ground where one group of dark-suited figures offered it to a line of wraiths. “It is. They’re-“ Geomancer pointed. “They’re paying them.” The dark-suited figures handed gil to wraiths who went back to working in the pit. An endless cycle of working wraiths who periodically downed tools to take clumps of gil. “But those ones aren’t.”

Geomancer pointed to the far side of the pit. Here dark-suited men constructed a new conveyer-belt to merge near seamlessly with the first. One directed the gil up higher. Wraiths lined up like the other side, but the dark-suited men would break off their work and chase them back down into the pit. Some hung around after, weapons visible in hand as the wraiths struggled to resume working. Wait. There were other wraiths; lurking far beyond the edge of the pit and ignored by all. Other detritus lay here; portraits of an older man, his eyes slashed through with a burst of red.

“What happens when they’re all not paying?” Knight asked in a quiet voice.

“Not sure we want to find out,” Monk muttered, the reflection of the real world to the cognitive clear enough. “We need to get to Shinra before that.”

Geomancer nodded. The building above; half mako-reactor, half-villa built in a style not out of place in Costa del Sol – where they would find their target. Geomancer opened her mouth and stopped. Rufus Shinra strolled to the men setting up the conveyer-belt. Perhaps this would be easier? He was touring his facilities. And if he was here, there would be far less risk inside the building. “Might be a bit high profile right now,” she said and gestured towards him. “We know what we’re up against; we can re-group and try again tomorrow.”

The others nodded. Monk had difficulty tearing her gaze from the palace. Geomancer touched her arm as the others walked away. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I just never thought we’d get here. Or would ever get a chance like this. And I hate that if this works he’ll get some credit for what he’s done, even if people know it’s us and-“ She fell silent. “Sorry,” she murmured again. Monk rubbed the back of her neck and arched her back. “We should get back and rest up.”

Geomancer nodded. “Though I was thinking we could spend more of the evening together.”

Monk shot her an amused look. “You want to find out if massage’ll lead to something else or you want to go out somewhere?”

“Well,” Geomancer said with a wider grin, her hands settling onto Monk’s hips, gazing deep into the other girl’s eyes. “Start like that and see how things went? Try and take your mind off this?”

“Tempting-“ Monk glanced back to the palace. “I would like to put this out of my mind. We’ll see how it goes.”

Geomancer took her hand; together they left Rufus Shinra’s palace for the time being.


End file.
